COLUMBIA, S.C. — For the fourth time since taking over the South Carolina volleyball program, Tom Mendoza has guided the Gamecocks to a fourth NCAA Tournament appearance.
On Selection Sunday, Carolina learned it will travel to the Waco, Texas regional to face Dayton in Thursday's first round wth a scheduled start time of 5:30 p.m. ET.
The Gamecocks finished the regular season 16-11 overall, 7-9 in the SEC.
Dayton enters the postseason with a 29-2 overall record and ranked 23rd in the latest national coaches top 25 poll.
This marks the Gamecocks first NCAA Tournament bid since 2021.
“I’m excited for our players, I’ve just really enjoyed coaching this team whether it’s our first-year players or our graduates who are in year five,” head coach Tom Mendoza said in a statement.
“I felt they had put in the body of work that deserved the bid and I’m excited for them to get this opportunity to go compete in the NCAA tournament and say that they’re an NCAA tournament team, to come back as alums to see the postseason banner in the rafters.”
In addition to the news surrounding the NCAA Tournament, the All-SEC Team was unveiled with USC graduate student Riley Whitesides named to the First Team and first-year libero Victoria Harris making the seven-woman All-Freshman Team.
Whitesides put together one of the best seasons by an attacker in the program’s 51-season history. The left-side hitter averaged 4.43 kills per set, ranking her inside the top 25 nationally. In the regular season finale against Texas A&M on Nov. 30, she passed Shonda Cole’s 2005 total of 414 for fifth-most in a single season in the modern scoring era. Her 4.43 kills per set average is second-highest in the program’s all-time history, behind Cole’s 2006 average of 5.95. The Greenville native is responsible for over 34 percent of the team’s total kills for the entire season, which is the second-highest share of kills in the program’s stat-keeping era (since 1984). She nearly doubled her kill total from 2023 (239) while also hitting almost 60 points higher (.184 in 2023, .241 in 2024).
Columbia native Victoria Harris has elevated her hometown team’s defensive play with a record-setting season at libero. Overcoming two season-ending injuries to close her high school career at Cardinal Newman, Harris is the ninth Gamecock in program history to make the SEC’s All-Freshman Team and first since 2021. She ranked sixth in the SEC for digs per set, at 4.05, which also ranked 12th nationally among Division I freshmen. With her efforts on the back line of the defense, South Carolina lowered its total of service reception errors from 166 in 2023 to 103 in 2024 and ran a more efficient offense that improved its hitting percentage 25 points from year-to-year.
Harris’ 381 digs are the second-most by a Gamecock freshman in program history, behind only Fernanda Laires’ total of 470 in 1996. She had four 20-dig games this fall, most by a freshman in the program’s SEC era (1991), topped by a 27-dig performance on Nov. 13 at LSU. It was the most in a single game by any freshman Gamecock in the rally-scoring era and the ninth-highest total overall, earning her SEC Freshman of the Week honors on Nov. 18.
